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Breaking Bad creator is making a new show for Apple TV+ with Rhea Seehorn

Apple TV+’s original programming has received a major boost with the company landing a deal with “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” creator Vince Gilligan. Apple signed a two-season deal for his new project — dubbed as a grounded drama — that will be unrelated to the two hit series.
Deadline, which first reported the development, noted that “Better Call Saul” star and Emmy nominee Rhea Seehorn will play a lead in the upcoming series. The report also said that Gilligan will be a showrunner and an executive producer for the new project that could see per episode budget cross the $13 million to $15 million mark.

I am OVER THE MOON excited about this!!!! Words cannot express. My heart is exploding! https://t.co/rnqGSO1AvU
— Rhea Seehorn (@rheaseehorn) September 22, 2022

While Gilligan would want another hit series to show off for his resume, Apple would be looking for more high-profile shows to fill in the void of outgoing comedy series Ted Lasso. Jason Sudeikis, who is the lead and an executive producer on the show, is currently making the third and final season of the soccer-centered saga. The series has been a flagbearer for Apple TV+, with multiple Emmy wins and now a deal with Electronic Arts to feature Richmond AFC — the team that appears in the series — in the upcoming EA Sports FIFA 23.
Apple TV+ scored nine Emmy wins this year, which is on par with its competitors like Hulu, Disney+ and Amazon Prime, with 10, 8 and 7 wins, respectively. Notably, Ted Lasso won all four Primetime Emmy Awards for Apple TV+.
The company is looking to diversify its streaming portfolio with multiple deals this year. In August, it said to have signed an agreement with Futuro Studio to turn original podcasts into TV shows. It’s also heavily investing in live sports streaming with deals including Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer.
Breaking Bad creator is making a new show for Apple TV+ with Rhea Seehorn by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch
Breaking Bad creator is making a new show for Apple TV+ with Rhea Seehorn

33% of US TikTok users say they regularly get their news on the app, up from 22% in 2020

Earlier this summer, a Google exec admitted that TikTok was eating into its core Search business, particularly among younger users. But that’s not all TikTok is now being used for, a new Pew Research Center study indicates. According to the findings from a report that examined Americans’ use of social media for news consumption, 33% of TikTok users now say they regularly get their news on the social video app, up from just 22% in 2020.
Meanwhile, nearly every other social media site saw declines across that same metric — including, in particular, Facebook, where now only 44% of its users report regularly getting their news there, down from 54% just two years ago.
Image Credits: Pew Research
This data suggests TikTok has grown from being just an entertainment platform for lip syncs, dances, and comedy to one that many of its users turn to in order to learn about what’s happening in their world.
That may raise concerns, given TikTok’s connections to China — a topic it was recently pressed to clarify in a Senate hearing focused on national security. The hearing had followed the release of a BuzzFeed News report that had discovered how China-based ByteDance employees had been regularly accessing TikTok’s U.S. users’ private data.
If TikTok were to become one of the primary ways younger people in the U.S. learned about news and current events, then the app could potentially provide a channel for a foreign power to influence those users’ beliefs with subtle tweaks to its algorithm.

Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter dodge questions on social media and national security

For the time being, however, TikTok is not a primary source of news consumption across social media — that honor still resides with Facebook.
Pew found that 31% of U.S. adults report regularly getting their news from Facebook, which is higher than the 25% who get their news from YouTube, the 14% who get it from Twitter, or the13% who get it from Instagram.
TikTok was in fifth place by this ranking, as only 10% of U.S. adults said they regularly get their news on the video app. (Of course, when TikTok’s sizable user base of those under the age of 18 grows up, these metrics could quickly change.)
LinkedIn (4%), Snapchat (4%), Nextdoor (4%), WhatsApp (3%) and Twitch (1%) were much smaller sources of news among Americans, the study also found.
Image Credits: Pew Research
In addition, Pew somewhat backed up Google’s assertion that it was losing traction to TikTok and other social media apps, as it noted that the percentage of U.S. adults who got their news via web search had dropped from 23% in 2020 to 18% in 2022.
But it didn’t necessarily point to TikTok or any other social platform as gaining, as the percentage of adults using social media of any sort for news consumption dropped from 23% to 17% between 2020 and 2022, as did other forms of news consumption like news websites and apps.
Image Credits: Pew Research
It’s not clear that any single platform is benefiting from these declines, as Pew didn’t uncover a shift from digital news sources to others, such as TV, print or radio — all those saw declines in news consumption as well.
Image Credits: Pew Research
Still, digital devices continue to outpace TV, Pew said, as the latter has seen its usage drop as a source for news consumption from 40% in 2020 to 31% in 2022.
Plus, when asked about preferences, more Americans (53%) said they would rather get their news digitally than on TV (33%), radio (7%), or print (5%) — an answer that’s stayed consistent since 2020.

Google exec suggests Instagram and TikTok are eating into Google’s core products, Search and Maps

33% of US TikTok users say they regularly get their news on the app, up from 22% in 2020 by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch
33% of US TikTok users say they regularly get their news on the app, up from 22% in 2020

OpenAI begins allowing users to edit faces with DALL-E 2

After initially disabling the capability, OpenAI today announced that customers with access to DALL-E 2 can upload people’s faces to edit them using the AI-powered image-generating system. Previously, OpenAI only allowed users to work with and share photorealistic faces and banned the uploading of any photo that might depict a real person, including photos of prominent celebrities and public figures.
OpenAI claims that improvements to its safety system made the face-editing feature possible by “minimizing the potential of harm” from deepfakes as well as attempts to create sexual, political and violent content. In an email to customers, the company wrote:
Many of you have told us that you miss using DALL-E to dream up outfits and hairstyles on yourselves and edit the backgrounds of family photos. A reconstructive surgeon told us that he’d been using DALL-E to help his patients visualize results. And filmmakers have told us that they want to be able to edit images of scenes with people to help speed up their creative processes … [We] built new detection and response techniques to stop misuse.
The change in policy isn’t opening the floodgates necessarily. OpenAI’s terms of service will continue to prohibit uploading pictures of people without their consent or images that users don’t have the rights to — although it’s not clear how consistent the company’s historically been about enforcing those policies.
In any case, it’ll be a true test of OpenAI’s filtering technology, which some customers in the past have complained about being overzealous and somewhat inaccurate. Deepfakes come in many flavors, from fake vacation photos to presidents of war-torn countries. Accounting for every emerging form of abuse will be a never-ending battle, in some cases with very high stakes.
No doubt, OpenAI — which has the backing of Microsoft and notable VC firms including Khosla Ventures — is eager to avoid the controversy associated with Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion, an image-generating system that’s available in an open source format without any restrictions. As TechCrunch recently wrote about, it didn’t take long before Stable Diffusion — which can also edit face images — was being used by some to create pornographic, nonconsensual deepfakes of celebrities like Emma Watson.
So far, OpenAI has positioned itself as a brand-friendly, buttoned-up alternative to the no-holds-barred Stability AI. And with the constraints around the new face editing feature for DALL-E 2, the company is maintaining the status quo.
DALL-E 2 remains in invite-only beta. In late August, OpenAI announced that over a million people are using the service.
OpenAI begins allowing users to edit faces with DALL-E 2 by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch
OpenAI begins allowing users to edit faces with DALL-E 2

Daily Crunch: Adobe snaps up Figma in proposed $20B deal that has some scratching their heads

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here.
Happy Thursday! Has everyone recovered from Zoom going down this morning? Don’t worry, Zoom is back up, but if anything, we hope it helped you have a quieter day…for a while at least.  — Christine and Haje
The TechCrunch Top 3
One rival at a time: The digital design world got a treat today when Adobe announced it was buying Figma, one of its biggest rivals, in a $20 billion deal that has both investors and Figma enthusiasts pondering what will change and if those changes will be bad, Ingrid reports. Meanwhile, Alex gives his take on the deal over in TechCrunch+ land.
“The Merge” is here: Talk of “The Merge” has been with us for weeks, and today it is finally here. If you don’t follow cryptocurrency, this means that Ethereum, one of crypto’s most popular blockchains, has now switched to proof-of-stake consensus, which also means it will now consume a lot less electricity, Romain writes. And for TC+, Jacquelyn tells us why it matters that Lido, Coinbase, Kraken and Binance have a majority stake of ETH.
There’s a fix for that: Apple is clearing a path for easy iPhone 14 integration with a setup fix. Ivan has more.
Startups and VC
Today, Haje has been running around at Micromobility America. They insist on using the MMA acronym, so he’s expecting a fist to the face any moment, but so far the only risk of injury has been from neck-breaking micromobility in the form of electric rollerblades. It’s probably a coincidence that Kav announced it is spooling up a 3D printing factory for bike helmets on the same day.
Looks like mobility is everywhere these days — Matt notes that mobility startups are filling the void in a Detroit auto show that’s a shell of its former self.
The TechCrunch team has been extraordinarily busy. There’s a wall of news on the TechCrunch homepage; here’s a few of the ones that caught our eye this fine Thursday:
Like private equity, but with pocket change: Anita reports that Allocations just raised at a beefy $150 million valuation in its mission to help private equity funds lure smaller investors.
You and me, baby, ain’t nothing but mammals, so let’s invest across multiple channels: U.K.-based fintech Lightyear is extending its stock-trading offering to include a wide selection of stocks and traded funds (ETF), Paul reports.
From the shirt off your back to the shiz in your bag: Reusable packaging startup Olive creates a new model to keep clothes out of landfills, Christine reports.
We’re sure more money will fix this: VCs look the other way as they give $205 million more to Verkada, whose tech (and lax security) has been abused repeatedly, Connie reports.
To Infinity and beyond: Morpheus Space’s satellite thrusters are propelled forward with a $28 million Series A, reports Stefanie.
Pitch Deck Teardown: Helu.io’s $9.8M Series A deck
Image Credits: Helu (opens in a new window)
Helping small- and medium-sized enterprises with their controlling, reporting and budgeting may not sound exciting, but Austrian fintech startup Helu.io’s storytelling skills excited investors enough to raise a $9.8 million Series A in July.
With the exception of some details regarding unit economics and revenue, Helu shared its entire winning pitch deck with us. As these slides suggest, its founders took a straightforward approach:
Problem: “The CFO’s pain is Excel.”
Solution: “Good-bye Excel sheets.”

Pitch Deck Teardown: Helu.io’s $9.8M Series A deck

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!)
Big Tech Inc.
Whenever Call of Duty is mentioned, we can’t help but recall Rashida Jones’s character in “The Office” giving the game a shout-out. In today’s case, Jordan was there as Activision unveiled what the game’s next generation will look like.
We won’t be undone: Amanda got “BeReal” with TikTok’s newest feature, which will have you experiencing a bit of déjà vu.
“The Merge,” take two: We know you enjoyed Romain’s coverage of “The Merge”; now Rita reports on how this has affected cryptocurrency miners.
Two giants make an even bigger giant: Want to know what happens to customer data when Salesforce and Snowflake partner? Ron can tell you.
All eyes on gaming: While Activision was over there unveiling the new Modern Warfare game, the company’s proposed tie-up with Microsoft is getting a deeper look from the United Kingdom’s antitrust investigators, Natasha L reports.
Back in the hot seat: Taylor watched the latest Senate Homeland Security Committee meeting featuring executives from Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter so you don’t have to. Spoiler, they  dodge questions about social media and national security.
Daily Crunch: Adobe snaps up Figma in proposed $20B deal that has some scratching their heads by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch
Daily Crunch: Adobe snaps up Figma in proposed $20B deal that has some scratching their heads

Netflix downsizes its animation department, impacting 30 employees

Yet another round of layoffs at Netflix has unfortunately affected 30 Netflix Animation employees. Deadline first reported the news, and Netflix confirmed to TechCrunch that the company is downsizing the department.
Earlier this year, Netflix brought on Karen Toliver as vice president of Animation Film Content and Traci Balthazor as vice president of Animation Film Production. The company told us that, similar to other major animation film studios, the idea is to downsize so the animation film production arm is better organized under a central leader — Balthazor.
It’s Netflix’s hope that with a reduced staff, Netflix Animation can make even more high-quality films. The streaming service has many Academy Award-nominated animated titles, such as “Robin, Robin,” “Klaus,” “The Mitchells vs. The Machines,” “A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon,” “I Lost My Body” and “Over the Moon.” The slate also includes “Back to the Outback,” “The Willoughbys,” “Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood,” “The Sea Beast” and more.
Over the summer, the streaming service laid off over 450 employees in a major workforce reduction. This was mainly due to slow revenue growth.
In May, TechCrunch learned that changes to animated projects could impact around 70 employees in the animation division.
There has been bad news all around for Netflix, as the streaming giant lost 970,000 subscribers in July, adding to the loss of 200,000 subs in April.

Netflix lays off 300 more people — almost 3% of its staff

Netflix lays off 150 staffers, citing slowing revenue growth

Netflix downsizes its animation department, impacting 30 employees by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch
Netflix downsizes its animation department, impacting 30 employees